Book Description

A laboratory investigation was performed to define responses of a natural quartz sand to various hydraulic conditions. The results demonstrate the performance of the material in a movable-bed model and, when compared with the responses of other materials, may provide a basis for the selection of optimum materials for various movable-bed modeling requirements. Twenty-one tests were performed with a 40-ft-long beach containing an inlet and with unidirectional, steady flows through the inlet substituting for tidal flows. The geometric characteristics of the inlet channel, beach profiles, inlet configurations, and material transport were observed for conditions with and without waves and for various magnitudes of flood and ebb flows. The tests showed that the minimum channel area, the channel width at the location of the minimum area, and the hydraulic radius at the location of the minimum area were strongly related to the rate of flow through the channel. The rate of material transport was found to be weakly related to channel flow rate, but the sparseness of data observations with time precluded definite evaluation of this. The ability to scale channel geometry was demonstrated. The rate of material transport appears to be a scalabe quantity, but the scaling relations require additional experimentation for definition. (Author).